Resurected Inlaw
by averagemuggle
Summary: Beth Clarke was lucky enough to be in NY when the bombs went off, she spent a year traveling to Jericho, hoping her daughter was still alive. What happens when she arrives to find her beloved daughter engaged to a small town farmer? duh chaos StanleyMimi
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

It was, without a doubt, the ugliest house she had ever seen. If anything proved the desperation of the world at the moment, it was the fact that her daughter would even consider living in this tacky building. 'Maybe it looks decent during the day' Beth Clarke thought as she pulled into the driveway. She had waited so long for this. After months of exhausting travel and praying for her daughter, she was going to see her Mimi again. Standing at the dusty screen door, she knocked after failing to find a doorbell. She didn't know what she had expected, but it definitely hadn't been the nose of a gun.

"Who-Who's th-there?" came her daughter's terrified voice.

"Mimi?!" Beth cried.

The gun fell to the floor and Beth saw her daughter's shocked face.

"Mom?!"

They both ran into the other's arms and cried.

"I thought you were dead!" Mimi cried.

"No! I was visiting Marie in New York when it happened! You have no idea how grateful I am you took that extra time to audit that farm!" Her mother cried.

Mimi walked her in and showed her to a table where they sat. After both had registered the fact that they were in the same room, Beth told the story of how she had been shopping with friends in New York when the mushroom cloud appeared. With only hope that she hadn't flown back to DC yet, Beth hitchhiked to Jericho to learn the fate of her daughter. It was a long story, and Mimi listened quietly, tears in her eyes, only interrupting ever so often to reach out and touch her mother, making sure she was really there. By the time she had finished the story, the sun had been up for nearly an hour.

"…so after everything finally calmed down, she told me where you were. And then I came and you're here!" she squealed.

Mimi shook away the tears in her eyes and said, "I'm just so happy you're not gone,"

Beth smiled "And that's not the only good news," she said.

"What else?" Mimi asked.

"Well, there've been rumors that soon transportation will be up and running soon. So you can finally leave this God-forsaken place and come back to the big apple with me."

Surprisingly enough, instead of leaping for joy, Mimi shyly smiled before looking at her hands, "I-I don't think I could do that, Mom," she stuttered.

"What? Why not?" Beth asked, shocked.

Before Mimi could answer, footsteps were heard coming from the hallway, and a blond man walked in. He didn't seem to notice Beth, and he might as well not have, because after what he did, she felt as if she had been buried by a ton of bricks.

He walked down the hallway, stretched and yawned, he then walked over to Mimi, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head, "Morning," he whispered before walking to the counter and opening a cupboard.

"Who in God's name are _you_?" Beth said through a mouth that was hanging wide open.

The man spun around, looking just as hocked as her, "I could ask you the same question, then add a 'What are doing here?'" he replied.

"I'm Mimi's mother. I came to find Mimi," Beth said, almost automatically.

"She was in New York when it happened, she's been trying to get here ever since," Mimi quickly explained.

"Thank you for the introduction," Beth said flatly. She turned back to Mimi, "So," she said through clenched teeth, "Who is he?"

"This is Stanley," Mimi said, "He's…" Mimi hesitated, "He's my-uh" More hesitation, "We l…" Mimi continued to search for words, every time she began a sentence, it seemed she suddenly lost what she was about to say. Her eyebrows would furrow and her lips trembled. It went on like that for several minutes. Mimi finally looked up, confidence in her eyes, "Stanley and I are-"

She didn't panic halfway through the sentence that time, she was just interrupted. The man, Stanley, jumped in front of her and grabbed Beth's hand to shake, "-Hi. I'm Mimi's fiancé," he said with a wide grin.

Beth's throat dropped to her stomach. Mimi looked like she was about to faint. The strange man just stood there, shaking her hand and grinning dumbly.


	2. Corny PickUps

"Her _what_?" Beth stuttered the moment she found her voice.

"Fiancee, meaning we'll be getting married next month," The man just wouldn't wipe that smile off his face, not even when she didn't respond to his smart-mouth reply, "Getting married is when you-"

"That?" Beth interrupted his second clever joke to question her daughter, "You're with this?"

"I-I'm s-still getting used to the fact that you're still here," Mimi stuttered.

"Alright then, you take your time to process this," Beth said before shooting up to face the man, "You! Name,"

"Stanley Richmond," he smirked.

"Occupation,"

"Farmer,"

"Income,"

"That doesn't really exist right now,"

"Okay…" Beth turned back to her daughter, "So you're throwing away a nice, semi-normal life in New York for an incomeless corn husker who I've only known for a few minutes and already I want to rip that smirk off his face?"

"Oh, actually he's a jay-hawk," Mimi corrected her mother.

"Don't tell me you're getting his smart-mouth," Beth warned.

Before Mimi could answer, more footsteps were heard coming down the stairs. And a young teenage girl walked into the kitchen, followed by a dark haired boy. They were kissing and smiling, until they saw the group of people. The girl's held the look of a deer in headlights while the boy looked almost as stubborn as the man who was apparently Mimi's fiancé. Looking back to her daughter for another explanation, she saw that she had buried her face in her hands before muttering, "Not now" under her breath. Looking back at 'Stanley' Beth saw that his grin had finally been wiped off and replaced by a deathly glare at the teenage couple. He opened his mouth to speak before the heard the unmistakable _screech_ of a kitchen chair, both Beth and Stanley's eyes turned towards Mimi, who had jumped up from her chair and was storming towards the two teens, "Do you two _plan_ the least appropriate time to storm in?!" She exclaimed as she grabbed the back the boy's shirt and tug him towards the door, "I am _not_ dealing with this right now. Go home and relish the time you have before Stanley drags your butt back here and then we'll let chaos ensue." She shoved him out the door, he looked at her, confused and terrified at the same time. "Go!" she commanded and slammed the door in his face. She then turned to face the girl. "Could you please lose the attitude for a minute so I can calmly explain to my mother what's going on?" Throughout her entire speech to the girl, Mimi made quick hand gestures, which greatly confused Beth until the girl spoke.

"You're mother?" The girl asked in a thick and unclear voice while making hand gestures herself.

Beth jumped back and turned to Stanley, "She's _deaf_?"

"Hey!" The man shot a warning glance clearly meant for Beth. But Mimi heard it and quickly assumed it was pointed at her.

"Don't start!" she warned, "We'll deal with Sean later! Right now, we are going to focus on my mother! Who has gone through hell to get here! So we are going to explain to her what's going on in a manner that doesn't give her a heart attack!" There was a brief moment of silence before Mimi ordered, "Now everyone to the dining table!"

The two strangers briskly retreated to the wooden chairs, followed closely by Mimi, who made herself comfortable and smiled at her mother before breaking the shuffling silence with a deep breath. "Alright!" she announced, turning towards the young girl she began talking, adding hand gestures to her words, "Bonnie, this is my mother," She pointed at Beth before continuing, "She was in New York when the bombs went off and has spent the past months trying to get here to see if I'm okay. Alright?" She asked. The girl nodded, but her face held an obvious look of confusion, Mimi didn't seem to notice, because she exclaimed, "great!" and turned back to Beth.

"So!" Mimi started, "as you can see, this is Stanley, we'll be getting married in a few weeks. And this," she pointed back to the younger girl, "is his little sister, Bonnie. That boy was Sean, her boyfriend, who Stanley doesn't approve of. Got that?" Mimi asked in the cold tone she always used when she was in a short mood, but something in her voice seemed lighter when she spoke of the two strangers in the room, "Any questions? Anyone?" she asked, and the room erupted into noise. Questions flew in every direction. "One at a time!" Mimi yelled and the room found itself in silence again.

"How did you meet these people?" Beth asked.

Mimi took in a deep breath, "I know it sounds bad, but we've figured out how to fix it when law and order return," Mimi began, "Stanley is the reason I came here."

Beth looked at Mimi blankly.

"He owns the farm I came to audit," Mimi explained quickly.

Beth sat back, "You're marrying someone two hundred thousand dollars in debt?"

"It's a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in debt, and like I've said, we figured out how to fix it, well I did, no one else spoke legal when I explained it to them." Mimi smiled as she finished, "Bonnie and Stanley didn't even know how to sign the words I used."

The two strangers laughed in remembrance.

Beth slowly turned to the man, "How did you come to be engaged to her?" she asked.

'Stanley' smiled and looked at Mimi, who smiled back, "Well," he began, "I was at the bar…"

"Are you an alcoholic?" Beth cut in.

"No!" 'Bonnie' and Mimi said loudly and definitely.

'Stanley' chuckled it off, "Anyway," he continued, "And just to avoid anymore interferences, I'm not and never have been an addict," he joked, "So, I was at the bar, because I had a bet with the owner, who isn't an addict either, by the way, and I've got my eyes glued to the screen, see, when I watch the game I can't really notice anything else, so I knew it was a big deal…"

"A huge deal!" 'Bonnie' cut in.

"A huge deal," 'Stanley' corrected himself and continued, "I knew it was a huge deal when I saw Mimi out of the corner of my eye," the smile on his face grew as he said, "And it was hard to look at anything else."

And with that Beth realized that maybe her daughter had actually found the one, of course, then she saw Mimi's response.

"I know that's a line, mister," Mimi said in a cold tease.

"It's not a line!" Stanley refuted.

"Right, because you didn't look back at the TV just in time to see you win the bet and cry victory in my face," Mimi answered.

"I was trying to impress you with my physic abilities," 'Stanley' teased back in a mock James Bond voice.

"So, you're a gifted physic but can't tell when a girl doesn't want you to talk to her," Mimi teased back.

'Stanley' smiled and walked over to Beth's daughter, "At least my lines have gotten better," he whispered to her.

"That they have," Mimi smiled back and kissed him, smack on the lips.

"S-So what happened after that?" Both Beth and 'Bonnie' asked at the same time.

Mimi and her lip-buddy pulled away and Mimi smiled and finished, "Well, he tried a very corny pick up line…"

Mimi stopped talking to laugh at what she had just said, as did 'Stanley'.

"I'm sorry, guys. You had to be there to get it," Mimi said through shaky breaths.

"Well, we know that two people got particularly lucky last night," 'Bonnie' said in an annoyed tone.

The two to which 'Bonnie' replied, gathered themselves shortly after 'Bonnie's' comment and Mimi resumed talking, "Anyway, I found out who he was, he found out who I was, and his teasing got worse, as did my loathing of him. And then the bombs happened, stranding me here, my hotel closed down, so I had to stay with him, and then, after a few months," Mimi rested her hand on 'Stanley's', which sat atop the table, and they looked into eachother's eyes and she smiled as she spoke, "I finally realized that I wasn't loathing, I was just head over heels. And I told him about those mango margaritas in Puerto Rito, he improvised and invented the Tango Margarita, and with that, we just…" and Mimi sighed and rested her head on the man's shoulder. He rested his head on hers and they smiled and closed their eyes and held hands for a few silent moments.

"Tango Margaritas?" Beth asked, "What the hell are those?"

The two lifted their heads and opened their eyes.

"Instant Tang and tequila," 'Stanley answered with a goofy grin, "They're awesome," he emphasized the word 'awesome'.

"You fell in love with him because he made a cheap alcoholic drink that rhymed with mango?" Beth asked.

Mimi didn't respond though, instead she jumped up in her chair, "Oh! We should serve it at the wedding! That way we're not not serving fancy punch because it's unavailable!"

"Yes!" Stanley replied, just as enthusiastic, "We can have cornflakes in warm milk for appetizers and a chicken, murdered by the bride herself!"

"The chicken's not a bad idea, but I don't care what happens, you never serve cornflakes at a wedding, and you know why I can't kill a…" Mimi trailed off, "You were in New Bern when I had to kill the chicken."

'Bonnie' was laughing hysterically, Mimi looked enraged, "Were you and Sean watching me?!" she asked.

'Bonnie' immediately stopped laughing. 'Stanley' wrapped his arms around Mimi's shoulders and assured her, "Don't worry, only, Jake, the neighbors, Emily, Mary, Eric, Heather, and the student body of Jericho High know."

"Know what?" Beth asked Mimi, who had gone white in the face.

"Nothing," she answered, "Anything else you want to know?"


End file.
